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A few weeks ago I applied for the beta of Google Music, ‘cause, why not? Well, I got accepted for that. You can apply, too, by going to music.google.com.
First, there is the music manager and the uploading of the music (20,000 song limit. Sheesh!). Then I’ll be able to comment on usability.
Q
So, I’ve mentioned The Old Republic here before, Bioware’s new MMORPG set in the Star Wars universe a few thousand years before Star Wars: A New Hope. Just to refresh your memory here are a few cinematic trailers. If the game play is half as good as the scripted trailers, It’s gonna be awesome.
And now I have the chance to find out early. I applied for an early testing account and was accepted. I’m installing the game now, and can’t wait to try it out.
Watch this space for updates and reviews of the early play experience.
Q
I’ve recently discovered Jamendo.com, a music site that hosts free music, and I’ve been meaning to post about it.
That’s right. Free, no strings attached. The site allows independent artists to offer their albums as a free download with Creative Commons licensing. I’ve got a few favorites, so far, but let me start with sharing Zero Project with you. Zero project is the work of one anonymous fellow from Athens, Greece who has been releasing his music to the world since 2007. The music is electronic leaning toward ambient, chill out, and house. It makes for excellent foreground or background listening.
Why don’t you give it a try. I suggest starting with e-world.
Q
Hiya,
I’m doing some site maintenance right now, so your connection may be spotty.
In addition, I must apologize for a necessary step. Due to unscrupulous assholes creating site accounts for the sole purpose of spamming my comments and forums, I have been forced to delete all user accounts. If you are one of the few actual customers/friends of the site, I am deeply sorry, but you will have to create a new account to continue to use the forums. Please forgive the inconvenience.
It only takes one idiot to screw things up for the rest of us.
Q
Now, this. This is sweet.
The idea is to stabilize and slow the reentry of a space vehicle using only the aerodynamics of a falling feather. This test run shows proof of concept beautifully.
Well, Round 1 is over for the American Gods contest. I did not make it into the finals, but that’s okay. Thanks to all of you who voted, even once.
Here is a link to the 20 finalists that Gaiman will have to choose from. http://ping.fm/oa5S3
Strangely, I don’t see the fellow who was leading for such a long time. The tide must have turned over the month of April. At least one of the finalists was someone I liked from the early days, Jeremy Owen. I can’t wait to see who gets chosen.
Sláinte,
Q
Morgenstern’s Spellbook and Resnet’s Spellbook are now available for bundle purchase at DriveThruRPG. Buy them together and save $1.50.
Unfortunately, DriveThruRPG only allows bundles on PDF items at this time, so I can’t make a POD bundle. I’ll look into an omnibus edition for printing in the near future.
Voting continues for the Audio Book of American Gods. There are definitely some good readers out there. Unfortunately, the popularity contest that they’re using ensures that the people with the largest computer literate friend’s base get the votes. So many of the good readers are getting little to no votes.
Here’s a link to my vote page (http://ping.fm/7GTpC). This should take you to the actual page you can vote from, so you don’t have to scroll around to find me. If you don’t want to vote for me, please find someone you like better and get your votes in. Let’s try to force this more to a merit-based contest.
Q
Resnet’s Spellbook is finally finished and uploaded to DriveThruRPG. It goes on sale Saturday, April 16, though the print on demand version will still take a while to clear approval at Lightning Source. Once it does, I’ll set up a bundle edition at DriveThru, so you can buy both siblings’ collections of spells at the same time!
I’ll update soon with a link directly to the product, but in the meantime, here is a link to the Hudspeth Games general page at DriveThru: http://ping.fm/ho4ei.
That should keep you interested for all of 3 seconds. 9
Yesterday I entered a submission in a contest to become a reader on the audio book of American Gods.
I need your daily votes to get me in the running. So please take a few moments to find me and click.
Thanks,
Q
Harper Collins is holding a contest to pick an average Joe to be a reader in an upcoming audio book version of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods. I’ve entered the contest, and I need you to go here (http://ping.fm/Zi7uI) to vote for my entry. You can vote once a day every day. Or, you could peruse the other entries and find one you like better. That’s what I’m going to do 8
Do*: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple is in phase two of funding at Kickstarter. Give it a shake.
*That's pronounced dough
From the incomparable Neil Gaiman, talking about a recent panel discussion:
The bit I think I was happiest with is about 16 minutes in, when I was asked what I would say to someone worried about having to know 47 years of backstory before watching Doctor Who, and I said: “No, look, there’s a blue box. It’s bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. It can go anywhere in time and space and sometimes even where it’s meant to go. And when it turns up, there’s a bloke in it called The Doctor and there will be stuff wrong and he will do his best to sort it out and he will probably succeed cos he’s awesome. Now sit down, shut up, and watch ‘Blink’.”
Yesterday Alex Skolnick’s Veritas arrived, and I can’t stop listening to it. This is some hard rockin’ guitar-centric jazz. A little Pat Metheney, a little John Scofield, and a whole lot of ethos. Here is the preview video he released a while back that prompted me to immediately pre-order.
I just put the finishing touches on a short D&D setting hack that I’ve been working on for the past week. I play D&D biweekly with some local friends, and we have a deal where we swap off between two GMs (and campaigns) every three sessions or so. We’ve just shifted around to a different pair with Nelson running his first campaign with us. That started me thinking about planning ahead so I can take over for Joe when his campaign ends, assuming Mark doesn’t have something to run. I’ve had an idea for how to kick off the campaign for a little while now, but not much else.
So I started thinking about overall plot. Now, I suck at the looking-three-moves-ahead thing, and developing a plot is my Achilles heel. So, when the barest thought struck me for a hack to the standard setting, I dove into it with gusto. See, that sort of stuff I can obsess over. It’s pretty much all I’ve been thinking about for days. I thought, why not explore a world where magic comes easily to everyone? Rather than having your standard spellcasting classes, anyone can learn to cast spells through feats. I ran with it from there, and now I have three new classes (which are probably overpowered, because, hey, it’s me, right?) and a nifty way of handling spells and psionics.
So, now I have to get back to considering plot and long-term structure. Which never survives the first encounter with the players anyway.
Once we start playing around with these rules and new classes and see how they balance out, I plan to share them with the world at large.
Slàinte,
Q
